Louisiana's continual land loss has created a monumental legal headache: When privately owned land vanishes under the water, who does it belong to?
A task force created in the summer of 2018 to come up with policy recommendations sent its list of possible solutions to state lawmakers Friday, ahead of their regular session.
The problem is a result of the state's rapidly changing landscape. About 80 percent of Louisiana's coast is privately owned. But, under an old law, as coastal erosion and sea level rise turn the land into open water the area becomes property of the state, including the mineral rights underneath.
Private landowners have become more adamant about restricting access to water on their property in order to assert their claim to the minerals underneath it. But boaters often have difficulty figuring out where private property ends and public waterways begin. Since 2003, Louisiana law does not require landowners to post signs demarcating their property. The resulting confusion led the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, or BASS, to announce in 2017 that it would no longer host professional fishing tournaments in Louisiana tidal waters, where fishers risk being arrested.
The task force included representatives of landowners, oil and gas companies, environmental groups and fishers. Their final report lays out seven possible options for addressing the problem. Five incentivize landowners to allow recreational fishing by giving them some form of title to water bottoms in areas that have have eroded, including the mineral rights.
Other options include making landowners post private property markers at the boundaries of their property or expanding recreational access to include privately owned coastal waterways.
There are options in the report that would satisfy many landowners concerned about losing their mineral interests, said Taylor Darden, with the Louisiana Landowners Association. "It’s going to be up to the Legislature and its wisdom to decide what to do with it," he said.
But fishers say there's still concern that areas where they historically fished would remain off limits under the options. These areas include canals dredged through marshy areas to bring oil equipment in and out, said Emory Belton, an attorney who represented the interests of Louisiana Sportsmen’s Coalition.
"I think what my guys would really object to is a patchwork of rules for different areas because the public would be no better off in terms of knowing where they could go," he said.
by Sara Sneath, Nola.com | Read more:
Image: David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
[ed. Expect to hear a lot more about this issue as coastal lands continue to erode from climate change. Avulsion (and accretion) issues arise for a number of reasons: accretion of sediments that add to an owner's property; loss of property due to environmental factors like hurricanes and earthquakes; and, in Alaska's case, changes in coastal topography and property lines due to earthquakes and receding glaciers (isostatic rebound). Some areas get uplifted, others submerged.]
A task force created in the summer of 2018 to come up with policy recommendations sent its list of possible solutions to state lawmakers Friday, ahead of their regular session.
The problem is a result of the state's rapidly changing landscape. About 80 percent of Louisiana's coast is privately owned. But, under an old law, as coastal erosion and sea level rise turn the land into open water the area becomes property of the state, including the mineral rights underneath.
Private landowners have become more adamant about restricting access to water on their property in order to assert their claim to the minerals underneath it. But boaters often have difficulty figuring out where private property ends and public waterways begin. Since 2003, Louisiana law does not require landowners to post signs demarcating their property. The resulting confusion led the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, or BASS, to announce in 2017 that it would no longer host professional fishing tournaments in Louisiana tidal waters, where fishers risk being arrested.The task force included representatives of landowners, oil and gas companies, environmental groups and fishers. Their final report lays out seven possible options for addressing the problem. Five incentivize landowners to allow recreational fishing by giving them some form of title to water bottoms in areas that have have eroded, including the mineral rights.
Other options include making landowners post private property markers at the boundaries of their property or expanding recreational access to include privately owned coastal waterways.
There are options in the report that would satisfy many landowners concerned about losing their mineral interests, said Taylor Darden, with the Louisiana Landowners Association. "It’s going to be up to the Legislature and its wisdom to decide what to do with it," he said.
But fishers say there's still concern that areas where they historically fished would remain off limits under the options. These areas include canals dredged through marshy areas to bring oil equipment in and out, said Emory Belton, an attorney who represented the interests of Louisiana Sportsmen’s Coalition.
"I think what my guys would really object to is a patchwork of rules for different areas because the public would be no better off in terms of knowing where they could go," he said.
by Sara Sneath, Nola.com | Read more:
Image: David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
[ed. Expect to hear a lot more about this issue as coastal lands continue to erode from climate change. Avulsion (and accretion) issues arise for a number of reasons: accretion of sediments that add to an owner's property; loss of property due to environmental factors like hurricanes and earthquakes; and, in Alaska's case, changes in coastal topography and property lines due to earthquakes and receding glaciers (isostatic rebound). Some areas get uplifted, others submerged.]
